Future of docs.scheme.org
Lassi Kortela 12 Jan 2023 16:13 UTC
For the longest time, I've been trying to think of what to do with the
subdomain docs.scheme.org. It could be taken in a number of directions
with no clearly correct answer.
One idea was to collaboratively write a canonical Scheme manual and put
it there. That idea now seems impractical to me. There are no
indications that we will be able to cover enough ground to be
comprehensive. It's probably unwise as well, since there is lots of
existing Scheme documentation (including about stuff that isn't tied to
one implementation) and it would be convenient to gather that somewhere.
What I suggest we do is turn docs.scheme.org into a readthedocs.org
style documentation browser featuring as much existing documentation as
we can find, all browsable and searchable using a unified interface. How
does this sound?
We can and should still try to write new documentation (e.g.
https://github.com/schemedoc/guide) but at the docs site it would be one
offering among many.
IMHO the best outcome of all is if we can convince the authors of
existing Scheme docs to merge their work into bigger documents. Over
time we'd end up with fewer manuals that are more thorough. This seems
like a win for users. But this kind of agreement rarely happens among
authors, so it's not wise to bet on it. Let it occur "organically" if
and when it does. Don't bet the docs site on it.